Erie, Pa, January 31, 2023—As young adults, having to face hardships is inevitable, no matter how hard you try and keep it from happening to you, it does.

Heartbreak, mental health, physical health, and stress are things that everyone goes through at least once in their lives.

Let’s talk about heartbreak for a moment and how it all ties together.

One day, everything is fine, all is well with you and your partner, the next day they’ve disappeared.

You’re left wondering to yourself what happened. You want all the answers, you want to know how it led to this, but you can’t.

Your heart, stomach, chest, and head hurt from this newfound pain. A pain you didn’t even think was possible.

Your mental, physical, and emotional health are askew, and you don’t know what to do.

You have classes, work, obligations, but all you can do is think about what could have possibly happened.

You want to sit and cry, scream, eat some ice cream, but all you can do is sit and stare blankly. Feeling numb, as though you cannot fully process exactly what happened.

You have so many thoughts running through your mind, but somehow it is a foggy mess. The common thing on your mind is what happened—how did this happen.

Let’s talk about how to heal.

Depending on the situation, you may be like me and wish to tap into the female rage you are experiencing.

You need to allow yourself to feel the hurt you feel, allow yourself time to heal from the trauma put on your heart.

Reach out to someone. The worst thing to do, especially at this time, is to be alone. Reach out to your friends, reach out to a counselor, a professor, your family, anyone.

Reaching out and talking to someone about the pain you are experiencing will help in the healing process. It doesn’t seem like it, especially not right away, but day by day it will get better.

You will be able to smile and laugh like you did before them, the pain you feel will soon be a memory. A reminder that you made it through the seemingly impossible.

You come out stronger than ever. You come out more than okay.

Having loved and lost is better than having never to love at all; even if it doesn’t feel that way, the memories of the time together and apart will make you stronger.

Just remember, allow yourself to feel what you are feeling, reach out to friends, family, counselors, whoever, don’t hide away even though it feels like the safest thing to do.

Don’t stay alone, don’t hide away. Everything will end up being better than okay, as time goes on things will get better for you.

Gannon University offers great resources to help with any form of struggle. Reach out to the health center [email protected],

In addition to the health center and the team of therapists and psychiatrists, there is the option of the TimelyCare app.